Lunch At Gotemba, Dinner At Tsubame, Gelato At Donatella (2007-06-08)
There aren't many food choices inside Gotemba Premium Outlets, their food court --Food Bazaar-- downright sucks. We weighed the five meal options on offer in the Food Bazaar: Japanese curry (totally not interested), Chinese (we'd have to be 1000% desperate to be eating fake Chinese food in Tokyo, much less in a food court), sandwich (only two choices available: fried chicken cutlet and BLT, neither looked appetizing), Hawaiian style rice bowl (looked decent enough) and a western type hot food place that wasn't open when we were there at 10:45 am.
With so few choices, we both got a Karubi Rocomoco (Korean style
beef over rice served with macaroni salad and a fried egg) from the
Hawaiian counter. The girl who looked like a junior highschooler
neither spoke enough Japanese to deal with customers nor was she adept
at running the till.
When she couldn't take our order (due to her not understanding what we
said in Japanese) and struggled with the buttons on the cashier, her
boss shot from behind to sort things out.
Our lunch came out looking NOTHING like the replica which had thick
plump slices of beef smothered in sauce; ours had a few pathetic
shriveled beef strips . The only things good in my bowl were the
egg with the runny yolk and the rice. The beef was uber chewy and
tough. Although I've never eaten rubber, I dare say a rubber sole
would be easier on the teeth than that tasteless beef which the cook
also forgot to season whatsoever. Heavily mayonnaised macaroni
salad is not my thing so I left most of the lot untouched. I was
about to eat the salad leaf in the bowl to get some green nutrition
only to see the numerous disease-ish yellow spots on it. Even the
orange juice we got tasted artificial and over sweet, so I'll have to
say our lunch sucked!
When we arrived back in Shinjuku (
), we decided to go to
Tsubame for
dinner. The warm salad using seasonal veggies was so very
delicious. A simple tangy vinaigrette is all it takes when the
main ingredients are of such high quality. For entree (main in
Australia) KL had the Pepper Pork Chop and I ordered Eisbien. The
soft pork knuckle meat was almost fall-off-the-bone tender and salted
just right. Eaten with the accompanied tangy sauerkraut, even the
thick creamy skin didn't feel heavy at all. KL's pork chop wasn't
very tender and too peppery for my liking.
For dessert, we went down one floor and got some gelato from
Donatella. My
choice of Tree Tomato (tasted like pickled plum) and Chocolate was good
at first and then the dreaded "dairy" taste from the chocolate hit me
after I ate half of it. Although gelato has less butter fat than
ice cream, this one felt deathly richer than normal ice cream which is
weird. But I still finished the whole thing lest
KL would give me an evil eyeful if I didn't (wasting food is a
crime punishable by death to him). Eating under duress is not
cool.
Back to top
